Pointing to Jesus (Genesis 3)

Summary:

The story in Genesis 3 recounts the Fall of humanity into sin, marking the tragic rupture of the covenant of works between God and His creation. 

The chapter begins with the serpent (Satan) deceiving Eve by distorting God’s command not to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, leading her to doubt divine goodness and authority. 

Eve partakes of the fruit, shares it with Adam—who, as the federal head of humanity, bears representative responsibility—and both immediately experience shame, attempting to cover themselves with fig leaves. 

When confronted by God, they shift blame, revealing the inherent corruption now infecting human nature. 

God pronounces curses: the serpent is condemned to crawl and face enmity with the woman’s seed; the woman faces multiplied pain in childbirth and relational strife; the man encounters toil and thorns in labor, culminating in physical death as dust returns to dust. 

Humanity is expelled from Eden to prevent access to the tree of life, underscoring God’s holy justice and the universal imputation of Adam’s sin to all descendants, rendering all totally depraved and incapable of self-restoration.

Pointing to Jesus:

The protoevangelium in verse 15—“I will put enmity between you [the serpent] and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel”—promises a victorious Seed of the woman who will crush Satan’s head, even at personal cost. 

This points directly to Christ, the incarnate Son of God born of a virgin (without Adam’s imputed sin), who defeats sin and death through His substitutionary atonement on the cross—bruised in His heel by crucifixion yet delivering the fatal blow to Satan. 

Additionally, God’s provision of animal skins to clothe Adam and Eve implies the first blood sacrifice, prefiguring the sacrificial system and ultimately Christ’s perfect sacrifice, where God sovereignly elects to cover human shame not by works but by grace alone.

Reflection:

This narrative profoundly shapes the Christian life by reminding believers of their inherited depravity from Adam, which manifests in ongoing struggles with sin, doubt, and relational brokenness—yet it also anchors hope in Christ’s redemptive victory. 

Christians are called to live in humble dependence on sovereign grace, pursuing sanctification through the Spirit’s work, resting in justification by faith alone, and extending gospel hope to a fallen world, all while anticipating the full restoration in the new creation where the curse is forever reversed.